DNA clears accused Golden State Killer of 1975 murder

DNA clears accused Golden State Killer of 1975 murder

January 10th, 2019by Associated Press in Breaking News

FILE - In this June 1, 2018, file, pool photo, Joseph James DeAngelo appears in Sacramento Superior Court, in Sacramento, Calif. Authorities have cleared DeAngelo accused of being California's Golden State Killer of involvement in the 1975 murder of a 14-year-old girl in the Central Valley. The Tulare County district attorney's office on Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2019, released a review that said DNA testing concluded that DeAngelo didn't kill Donna Jo Richmond. (Jose Luis Villegas/The Sacramento Bee via AP, Pool, File)

DNA testing excluded Joseph DeAngelo as a suspect in the murder of Donna Jo Richmond and — along with other evidence — indicates that another man was rightfully convicted of the slaying, according to a conviction review.

The girl vanished on Dec. 26, 1975 while bicycling from a friend's house to her home near Exeter. Her body was later found in an orange grove. She had been strangled, beaten and stabbed 17 times.

A convicted sex offender, Oscar Clifton, was convicted of kidnapping, attempted rape and murder. He was sentenced to life in prison and died there in 2013.

Among other killings, DeAngelo is charged with the murder of a college professor who was shot in 1975 at his Visalia home by an intruder who tried to kidnap his teenage daughter. Visalia is only about a dozen miles from Exeter.

DeAngelo also had been a police officer in Exeter in the 1970s. His arrest last year prompted prosecutors to review the Clifton conviction.

"I am again confident, just as this office was the previous times we reviewed the case, that the countless hours of report analysis, evidence evaluation, court transcripts, and DNA evaluation solidifies that Oscar Clifton tragically and violently ended the life of Donna Jo Richmond in an orange grove the day after Christmas in 1975," District Attorney Tim Ward said in a statement.

The conviction review said a partial DNA profile, developed from semen on the teenager's body, was consistent with Clifton's profile but not that of DeAngelo.

The review also noted that Clifton's invoice book was found near the girl's abandoned bicycle and that items of the girl's clothing were found along the road leading to his home and on a side road. The review also mentioned trial testimony that shortly before the killing, Clifton had made crude sexual remarks to another 14-year-old girl and had exposed himself to a woman. He was convicted of child molestation and indecent exposure for those crimes.